“I made so many mistakes and there was so much I didn’t know and understand, and I feel like when you do it wrong, it’s like you really internalize it in a deep way,” Ms. Holmes said as we stopped to look at a hissing anaconda.
Agreed. “What comes next”? Why should anything come next? She should go to prison, and then she should fade into obscurity. She’s a crook, and she’s never been anything other than a crook.
NYT has an unfortunate tendency to think that good reporting means presenting a wide range of views in a dispassionate and nonjudgmental manner, even when one of the views to be presented is that toddler murder can be justified if someone wants it badly enough. No judgments, just the facts, and it’s a fact the subject said it, you know? Let the readers decide which side of the fence to land on!
As for the purported attack on Holmes’ dog, the Mercury News did report an attack on 17 March 2021 in the yard of a home in Woodside, but that the dog is expected to recover. The article notes Another missing dog about a week later in Portola Valley but it is described as a “medium-size dog”, not the “wolf” (read: large Husky) that Holmes owned. Mountain lion attacks have increased with the drought and wildfires reducing their natural prey, and it is at least marginally plausible that a desperate cougar might go after a full-sized Husky, but I’d lay odds on this story being as much of a dissimulation as just about anything else Holmes has ever said. She’s essentially constitutionally incapable of actually telling a simple truth or not presenting herself in a fake manner, whether it is hero feminist entrepreneur or brainwashing victim of domestic abuse, all of which is in service to her ego. In that, she is in good company in startup culture but the degree to which she was able to shine on investors, financial analysts, and professional journalists is the one thing that she really excels at.
All I could think reading that article was that she is a complete sociopath. I think the writer was trying to show how easy it was to be sucked in by her and support her but she did a really poor job of hinting that even her supporters don’t trust a word she says.
The problem with this story is that it’s all reliant on the partner’s word, which is pretty meaningless.
I had a boss who used to make up personal stories to prove whatever point she had at the moment, regardless of whether or not the story contradicted what she had said yesterday.
One day she would tell us she was working there because she loved teaching, but she didn’t need the money because her husband was wealthy. The next month, she was working there for the money. Both times she has some sort of point of why we should have a particular attitude and her needing or not needing the job proved the argument.
This tale of the mountain lion was first used in an attempt to create sympathy from the judge. “You can’t send my partner to jail! She just lost her dog!” and not is being used to has part of her newly created persona. “She didn’t try to deceive people, she was just misguided but is too stubborn in her pursuit.”
I was trying to figure out why I had such a visceral negative reaction to her in this article and I realized it’s because she never shows any thought for those she hurt. Now since she is appealing her case, her lawyer may have told her not to apologize but going with the “I was young and naive and I really believed that this would work” narrative requires her to show some remorse to be sympathetic. Even if we assume that she really was an innocent victim of Sonny and had no idea that the tests were not being done on her machine and that the military was not using it etc, a normal person would have mentioned that she felt terrible about the people who got erroneous results and if she had known she would have stopped it. But this article is all about her. Here’s how SHE was inappropriately vilified by the media. Here’s how SHE was just trying to invent something useful. Here’s how SHE is just a normal person trying to raise her children. How will SHE be able to move past this. I just see absolutely no evidence of compassion or a conscience. It screams sociopath.
She’s the tragic victim in this, according to her.
Not a psychologist or other mental health expert, but that POV accords with a certain sociopathy – the rest of humanity exists as characters in her story, which is the only story being told.
I would never make fun of a baby name from another culture, but seeing as Holmes and I are both white, and neither of us have started a prison sentence (as of this writing), I feel we are of similar enough backgrounds that I can laugh a bit.
Horologists: is there a better Swiss watch company to name your kid?
It makes me wonder if there’s some flaw in the human psyche that allows them to be conned by people they know ahead of time are (convicted!) con artists.